What do a Real Housewife, an Olympic athlete, and a doula have in common?

PLUS: More of WIRED's best longreads from this week.

View this email in your browser  |  Manage newsletter subscriptions  07.24.22 Meet the Lobbyist Next Door What do a Real Housewife, an Olympic athlete, and a doula have in common? They're all being paid by an ad-tech startup as influencers—peddling not products but ideologies. BY BENJAMIN WOFFORD | 18-MINUTE READ The Real Housewife you follow on TikTok? She's a lobbyist. So is the doula, the Nascar driver, the makeup artist, the physical therapist, and the Olympic athlete. They all work for the Beltway-based ad-tech firm Urban Legend, the subject of Benjamin Wofford's rollicking and disquieting new feature. Founded in 2020 by Ory Rinat, a former Trump administration senior staffer, the startup has built the Exchange, a platform that connects advertisers with an army of 700 influencers from every niche of society who are paid to peddle not products, but political ideologies. With scant rules from both the FTC and FEC governing social media, this new model of political influence is "a system that is—by design—ripe for abuse," says UC Berkeley computer science professor Hany Farid. Many of the firm's influencers don't disclose that their posts—which urge follows to sign a petition, say, or read an op-ed—are paid, blurring the line between knowing what's a real opinion and what's a paid one. And while Urban Legend, like its emerging competitors, touts transparency and trust, the company has remained close-lipped about who its clients and influencers are and what its influencers are paid to say—until now. Zak Jason | Senior Associate Editor AI Art Is Challenging the Boundaries of Curation BY RAPHAËL MILLIÈRE | 6-MINUTE READ Artists working with programs like DALL-E do more than push a button—selecting outputs and engineering prompts are acts of aesthetic expression. How China Threatens to Splinter the Metaverse BY LULU CHEN | 6-MINUTE READ In the future, the metaverse could be split into two: China and the rest of the world. A Lawsuit Against Meta Shows the Emptiness of Social Enterprises BY RAKSHA VASUDEVAN | 7-MINUTE READ Foreign-owned organizations like Sama and Tala offer feel-good promises but take advantage of weak labor protections and poor accountability. Pandemic Death Counts Are Numbing. There's Another Way to Process BY JACQUELINE WERNIMONT | 5-MINUTE READ Data visceralization goes beyond mortality statistics to help people grieve. The US Has a Historic Opportunity to Bridge the Digital Divide BY ALISA VALENTIN | 4-MINUTE READ Past initiatives didn't focus enough on people of color. Here's how to do better this time. GET WIRED Get 1 year of WIRED for less than $1 per month. That includes Steven Levy's exclusive newsletter and a free tote! Subscribe now. Have questions or comments? Reply to this email.   This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter subscriptions

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[New post] UK: Kirby and the Forgotten Land is now the most successful Kirby game of all-time

Sickr posted: " The UK really warmed to the Nintendo Switch family of systems due to the innovative form factor and solid library of games from first party games to RPGS. In the past the UK top ten software sales used to mainly consist of PlayStation and Xbox games, but" My Nintendo News UK: Kirby and the Forgotten Land is now the most successful Kirby game of all-time Sickr Jul 24 The UK really warmed to the Nintendo Switch family of systems due to the innovative form factor and solid library of games from first party games to RPGS. In the past the UK top ten software sales used to mainly consist of PlayStation and Xbox games, but now it is evenly spaced out between the […] Read more of this post Comment Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from My Nintendo News. Change your email settings at manage subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://mynintendonews.com/2022/07/24/uk-kirby-and-the-forgotten-land-is-now-the-most-successful-kirby-game-of-all-time/ Powered by WordPress.com

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[New post] Rumour: Roller Champions from Ubisoft will apparently close down after Season 3

Sickr posted: " Games Beat journalist, Jeff Grub, who has recently appeared on the Xbox Era podcast claimed that the multiplatform Roller Champions will be canceled after Season 3 finishes. Ubisoft has recently had to delay several games and has scrapped some others bla" My Nintendo News Rumour: Roller Champions from Ubisoft will apparently close down after Season 3 Sickr Jul 24 Games Beat journalist, Jeff Grub, who has recently appeared on the Xbox Era podcast claimed that the multiplatform Roller Champions will be canceled after Season 3 finishes. Ubisoft has recently had to delay several games and has scrapped some others blaming the changing workplace due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The free-to-play game only launched in […] Read more of this post Comment Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from My Nintendo News. Change your email settings at manage subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://mynintendonews.com/2022/07/24/rumour-roller-champions-from-ubisoft-will-apparently-close-down-after-season-3/ Powered by WordPress.com

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[New post] Kamiya: Nintendo didn’t ask for any censorship in the Bayonetta series

Sickr posted: " Platinum Games director, Hideki Kamiya, has said on Twitter that despite contrary reports, Nintendo has never explicitly mentioned censorship for any of the Bayonetta series of games on the Nintendo Switch family of systems. He said that there have been " My Nintendo News Kamiya: Nintendo didn't ask for any censorship in the Bayonetta series Sickr Jul 24 Platinum Games director, Hideki Kamiya, has said on Twitter that despite contrary reports, Nintendo has never explicitly mentioned censorship for any of the Bayonetta series of games on the Nintendo Switch family of systems. He said that there have been times when they occasionally butt heads about other things, but that's usually about the development […] Read more of this post Comment Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from My Nintendo News. Change your email settings at manage subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://mynintendonews.com/2022/07/24/kamiya-nintendo-didnt-ask-for-any-censorship-in-the-bayonetta-series/ Powered by WordPress.com

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